


Chasing Angels

by May_Seward



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone is Human, Alternate Universe - Street Racers, F/F, Femslash February 2019, I couldn't find an official prompt list so I made my own???, Jocelyn is dead oops, Lesbian Author, Normal human Jonathan/Sebastian Morgenstern, idk this au has been in my head for a year now and i just need to get it down so here ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 22:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17631164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/May_Seward
Summary: ‘‘We call it chasing angels,’ Izzy explained, face flushed. ‘When your focus narrows to nothing but the road and the car, like there’s something bright and beautiful in front of you just out of reach and if only you just went that little bit faster you’d catch it, when it becomes more than a race, when it feels like you’re on the verge of reaching something greater.’’Femslash Februaryday 1: Angel





	Chasing Angels

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting a day late because I forgot this event was a thing and really wanted to participate so half of this has been sitting in my drafts for about 12 months now and it was about time it saw the light of day. 
> 
> (Title taken from [Heaven](https://youtu.be/zpFfWYO2K08) by Amber Run - go check it out!)

Jonathan and Luke were fighting again.

Clary locked the door to her room and plugged her headphones into her phone, turning the volume up loud. It wasn’t enough to mask the voices of her only remaining family in the living room. She could still hear every word through the electric guitar riffs and husky vocals, she could still hear the crash as Jonathan threw something across the room.

_‘Jonathan, calm down!’_

Clary clapped her hands over her ears, humming along to the music blasting her eardrums to drown out the fight.

_‘Jonathan, wait!’_

The front door slammed and for a moment, the house was silent, holding its breath, the very air drawn tight with it.

Then, in the living room, she heard Luke sob.

It had been like this since mom died. Clary hid in her room, her brother got angry, and her stepdad didn’t know how to properly deal with two grieving teenagers. He hadn’t been there, last time, when their father had died. Last time had been… uglier.

Something hungry and sharp clawed at Clary’s throat, threatening to tear her chest open. Her own tears, hot and salty spilt down her cheeks. She wished, for the thousandth- _millionth_ \- time, that her mom was there. She would know exactly what to do, what to say to get Jonathan to calm down, to make Luke smile again. Clary felt like she was barely keeping herself afloat most days. She couldn’t keep them above water, too.

She didn’t have it in her to go after her big brother. The rumble of his car echoing down the street sounded angry somehow, a crack of thunder unleashed by some vengeful god.

A sort of aching desperation shook her hands. The frantic desire to move, to run, was too overwhelming to resist. It shook her thoughts apart, scattered them until she could barely think at all.

Before she had even registered that she had come to a decision, she was opening her contacts.

Despite the late hour, Izzy picked up on the third ring. _‘Hey, Clary, what’s up?’_

‘Iz?’ Clary choked half-way through the word and couldn’t finish.

_‘Clary?’_ Izzy asked with a new urgency in her voice. _‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’_

‘I need to get out, Iz,’ Clary sobbed. ‘Out of this- this house, this town- please?’

Izzy didn’t even hesitate. _‘I’m on my way.’_

‘Thank you,’ the words shuddered out of her, wind rattling the window panes.

By the time headlights lit up her bedroom window, Clary had calmed down enough to fix her hair somewhat and throw a too-big jumper on over her pyjamas.

Quietly, she snuck out of her room, careful not to alert Luke still sitting in the living room. She eased the front door open and slipped through with none of her older brother’s dramatics.

The night was silent and clear, summer as it should be. Stars winked down at her as she took her first full breath in over an hour, relishing the smell of the grass and fresh air, the faint hint of exhaust hanging around the closer she got to the gleaming black Dodge waiting on the curb.

Izzy was fully dressed and as well-presented as usual, which would have been embarrassing if Clary hadn’t been on the verge of a panic attack only ten minutes prior and therefore run out of emotion to spare on something as trivial as embarrassment. Izzy’s red-painted lips curved elegantly downward as she took in Clary’s dishevelment, but there was no judgement on her face, only concern, and for that, Clary was grateful.

‘Oh, Clary,’ Izzy whispered, pulling her into a hug the moment she climbed into the passenger’s seat. Some of the tension melted from her shoulders at the comfort, the itch under her skin easing as she breathed in Izzy’s usual perfume-and-leather smell, sinking into her embrace.

‘Please,’ Clary begged. ‘Just get me out of here.’

Izzy nodded, pressing a gentle kiss into Clary’s hair, then pulled away, her hand trailing down Clary’s arm in one final gesture of comfort before she turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

‘Anywhere in mind?’ Izzy asked as Clary watched her home fall away in the rear-view mirror.

‘Anywhere but here.’

Izzy’s lips quirked in an almost-smile, but it was softer than her usual expression. ‘I know just the place.’

They drove in silence through town. It was nearly dead at this hour, the only activity they saw was a few people spilling out of Pandemonium on Main Street. Izzy sailed right past their usual haunt, gunning for open road. She put her foot down as they left the outskirts of town behind, and Clary felt something in her chest lighten with every mile between her and home.

After a few minutes, Izzy slowed, pulling over on a long, flat stretch of road lined with farmland. ‘Swap with me,’ she said.

Clary gaped. ‘But- Are you _sure?_ ’

Izzy just smiled the kind of smile that looked almost out of place on her. A girl in leather and boots that could kill you with a face that promised danger shouldn’t be able to smile so softly. It confused things in Clary’s head sometimes, these two halves of Isabelle Lightwood; the girl on fire behind the wheel at Magnus’ races, and the girl in front of Clary right now, still a bright spot in the dark, but gentler, warm like a candle flame. Neither side was any more or less genuinely _Izzy_ than the other, and the both had weight, a kind of magnetism Clary couldn’t help but be drawn to.

‘I trust you,’ Izzy said. Simple. Matter-of-fact. ‘Jace hasn’t taught you yet, has he?’ Clary shook her head, wordless, breathless, too surprised to speak. ‘I didn’t think so,’ Izzy said and then she grinned, bright and feral, full of danger and delight. ‘I think it’s about time, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Clary said, Izzy’s wicked look bolstering her somehow, charged under the light of the moon, transformed by the deep midnight shadows.

The moon hung large and bright overhead, almost full but not quite. Clary found herself staring up at it as she stepped out of the car and around to the driver’s side. She sat down in the warm leather seat Izzy had just vacated, fingers flexing over the steering wheel. She had seen the way this car could take a corner, had heard the roar of the engine as it accelerated, felt the wind whip through the open windows as Izzy took a turn too fast to be legal, but always in control. Just sitting there felt like freedom.

‘Turn her on,’ Izzy prompted from the passenger seat, steady, like an electric current.

With trembling hands, Clary obeyed. The car sprang to life, purring underneath her like a lion anticipating a good hunt. Clary’s heart picked up the pace to match.

‘Don’t go any faster than you feel you can control,’ Izzy said, ‘But let's see how fast you can get to that tree about a mile away.’

Clary’s face spread, incredibly, into a smile. Without warning, she hit the gas, screeching away from the roadside, shifting gears as fast as she was able. The car roared in triumph, Izzy whooping along with it like they were one and the same. Clary’s world narrowed down to that abandoned stretch of road, the hungry growl of the engine as it ate up the dirt, the smell of gasoline and Izzy’s perfume, the wind tugging insistently at her loose braid through the open window, the way the landscape blurred as she picked up speed. The animal roar of the engine grew louder with every second as the needle on the dashboard crept higher towards the limit until it felt like if she went any faster, they’d lift off and join the moon.

The whole world shook. Her heart pounded as the finish line ran to meet them, an apple tree swaying in the slight breeze. Clary let her voice join Izzy’s chorus, screaming her exhilaration to the empty air. She took her foot off the accelerator as they sped past it, coasting down the road on leftover momentum as she caught her breath.

‘Yes!’ Izzy cried, throwing her hands up. One went out the window, riding on air, the other hit the ceiling before gripping Clary’s arm. ‘Yes! That was amazing! Did you feel it?’

‘Feel what?’ Clary gasped, head spinning.

‘That moment,’ Izzy panted. ‘When the world fell away and it was almost like we were flying, like…’ She turned to face Clary as she pulled the car over, but left the engine running. ‘We call it chasing angels,’ Izzy explained, face flushed and bright, so, so _bright_ with happiness and adrenaline that Clary couldn’t help but be drawn closer, drinking in that pure contagious joy. ‘When your focus narrows to nothing but the road and the car, like there’s something bright and beautiful in front of you just out of reach and if only you just went that little bit faster you’d catch it, when it becomes more than a race, when it feels like you’re on the verge of reaching something greater.’

Clary laughed, her heart still pounding in her ears. Her skin burned where she touched the seat, the steering wheel, where Izzy’s hand still rested on her arm. ‘Chasing angels,’ she repeated, breathless and windblown. ‘That’s why you race, isn’t it? Why you can’t stop.’

Izzy breathed, ‘Would you?’

Clary met her glittering black gaze, tracing over the wisps of black hair that had escaped from her ponytail during Clary’s mad dash through the night with her eyes. Her lips curved into a softer smile than the one she had worn just moments previously. It changed her face, made her look more vulnerable somehow without dulling her usual razor-sharp confidence in any way. Clary was hit with the sudden urge to touch that smile.

‘No,’ she decided. ‘I wouldn’t.’

Izzy’s expression transformed back into that wild grin from before, the one that burned a hole in Clary’s chest like good liquor or gasoline. ‘You want me to teach you how to race?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ Clary matched that grin, felt it settle on her face and set fire to her blood. Her lungs ate up the air and her heart pushed through her chest, already hungry for the road, for the scream of the engine, the almost angelic look on Izzy’s face as they rocketed past the finish line- all holy fire not meant for mortal eyes.

Maybe Isabelle’s angels were out there, something always out of reach, but Clary’s angel had picked her up in the dead of night and brought her here and given her _this,_ this chance, this feeling. Clary glanced across to the passenger seat and found Izzy already watching her. She was so close, close enough Clary could reach across and touch-

Izzy’s hand covered Clary’s resting on the gearshift. The leftover thrill of the drive made her bold and she turned her hand over into new, unmapped territory as she laced their fingers together.

‘Thank you,’ Clary whispered into the darkness of the night and Isabelle’s bottomless black eyes.

‘I’ll always come when you call.’ Isabelle leaned forward until their foreheads touched and Clary forgot to breathe. ‘I know things are hard right now, but you have me,’ she vowed. ‘No matter what, you’ll always have me.’

Tears pricked at Clary’s eyes and she closed them against the overwhelming feeling of being seen, of being _known_ and comforted that came with the words and stoked the fire still burning inside her from the drive. Anything seemed possible after driving at two-hundred miles-an-hour, after all.

Clary sucked in a breath and in one move, she crossed the line that had been drawn between them, driving their lips together.

Isabelle responded with barely a second’s delay, surging forward like she’d been waiting for the green light and now she was racing. Clary’s heart filled her head like the roar of an engine, the world shook and shattered and reformed like they were still travelling at two-hundred miles-an-hour. Izzy’s hands reached up to cup the back of Clary’s head, grounding her just as Clary thought she might float away entirely. Her head spun and her hand’s found Izzy’s face and held on for dear life. The press of their lips sparked and burned a trail of gasoline all the way to her toes and back until Clary had no choice but to breathe.

She opened her eyes slowly, mouth parted and panting, to see Isabelle do the same. Her eyes were so close, reflecting what little light there was in the car, so all Clary could see was star-strewn sky. Izzy smiled, glittering and wide, and it was enough to send Clary’s already racing heart careening into starts and spins.

‘Let’s go again,’ Izzy suggested.

Clary nodded, reverting her gaze to the safety of the road and guided the car back onto it. The barren stretch of dirt gleamed under the moonlight, calling to her, daring Clary to slam her foot down.

She could see why Isabelle loved this feeling. It overtook everything else; there was no grief or pain when you were flying down a road so fast you stopped feeling like you were running away and started feeling like you were running _towards_ something bright and beautiful. Inevitable. Unstoppable.

Izzy’s hand brushed over Clary’s between them once more and Clary urged the car to go that little bit faster, to get that little bit closer to something untouchable and entirely new. It was just them and the moon and the road and, in that moment, Clary had never felt freer.

She never wanted to let go of this feeling for the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written this ship before and it's been a long time since I wrote for this fandom so I apologise if it seems OOC at points?
> 
> Originally this was going to be part of a much wider Clizzy street racers AU ft the rest of the gang but it kinda got pushed to the bottom of the pile by other fandom projects and kinda forgotten. That being said, I'd love to write more if there was interest so let me know in the comments or talk to me on [Tumblr](seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com) if you want more of this AU.


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